


The Night Before

by Daughter of Vayu (aquaregia)



Category: Code Geass, xxxHoLic
Genre: Brief mentions of other Code Geass' characters, Crossover, Dimension Travel, Emperor Lelouch, Gen, Shopkeeper Watanuki, Spoilers, Zero Requiem, mention of character's death, pre-zero requiem, xxxHolic nd Code Geass crossover
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-06
Updated: 2017-09-06
Packaged: 2018-12-24 15:03:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,492
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12015255
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aquaregia/pseuds/Daughter%20of%20Vayu
Summary: In the night before Zero Requiem, The 99th Emperor of Holy Britannia Empire Lelouch vi Britannia found himself standing outside a certain shop and met the shopkeeper who would grant any wish for the price.A Code Geass and xxxHOLiC crossover. Spoiler warning for those who didn't know the ending of Code Geass or xxxHOLiC,





	The Night Before

**Author's Note:**

> I've been obsessed with these two fandoms lately after re-reading xxxHOLiC and re-watching Code Geass. I know there will be third season of Code Geass where Lelouch was apparently survived the Zero Requiem, but for the sake of this fic, let's pretend that he did die... 
> 
> I'm sorry... DX
> 
> This will be my first published crossover fic (I think?) and probably the first one published in either fandom. Also, not beta-read. Enjoy, and tell me what do you think~

 

The man was still eighteen years old, with dark hair framing his delicate face, and a pair of amethyst eyes that looked far into the future. The man—or boy, really, didn’t matter—was tall and thin, with barely muscles shown in his willowy frame. Yet, the way he carried himself showing strength and authority. Even without his white bejeweled imperial regalia, the boy still possessed the same aura from within. This was a boy destined to do great things. His eyes spoke of lost, love, and betrayal; yet they were also longing for hope and dreams. And here he was, dressed in his loosely tied white robe and barefooted, he stood in front of the shop.

He didn’t know how he got there. He just closed his eyes and opened the door to his private chamber in Aries Villa after the Imperial Palace was destroyed during the destruction of Pendragon, and the next thing he knew, he was already here.

Wherever _here_ was.

His feet moved as if it had their own minds. He opened the shop’s door and greeted by _children_. They looked like twins, but the way they dressed were the opposite of each other. The one on the right had pink soft hair, while the one on the left had blue-ish curly hair, reaching down to the floor.

“Welcome.” They greeted in unison, as if they had practiced the line for years to perfect it.

“A guest for Watanuki,” the pink haired one said.

“A guest for Watanuki,” the blue haired one agreed.

“Uhm… I’m not sure how I got here…” the boy finally talked. “My feet just move on their own…”

“But the fact that you find your way to this place is inevitable, Your Majesty.” Another voice joined in. A boy came from the hallway, dressed in a form fitting long flowy, very elaborated _changshan,_ like they wore in Chinese Federation, in deep purple color with butterfly patterns. The boy was tall and thin, with soft dark hair and eyes of different colors behind his round glasses. One eye was blue while the other was this enchanting golden. “Welcome to my shop, and I am the shopkeeper,” the boy introduced himself. The shopkeeper gave the boy a small sad smile as if he could see the boy’s life opened up before him.

Suddenly, despite the long and thick robe he still wearing, the boy felt naked, stripped to the bone under those different colored eyes. The boy wasn’t sure if he enjoyed the feeling or not.

“Please, come in,” the shopkeeper said, leading the way, further into the shop until they entered a room of what the boy recognized as _tatami_ room. He had seen similar room before, in the house of his childhood best friend years ago. Somehow it felt nostalgic; the boy couldn’t help but smile.

They headed towards the porch, where everything was bathed in pale moonlight. On the porch was sat a set of tea cups and warm tea, ready to be served. The shopkeeper sat quietly on the porch and motioned to the boy to join him. Neither of them said anything as the shopkeeper poured the tea into two cups, and handed one of them to the boy.

“I’m not sure why I am here…” the boy said slowly, as if he was scared to break the silence between them.

“Fate,” the shopkeeper said as he reached for a long smoking pipe the boy often saw his old colleague used to smoke from. The shopkeeper looked too young physically to smoke, but the way he handled the pipe shown years of practice. There was something about the shopkeeper that giving him the feeling of unearthliness, something very old and unmoved by time. The same feeling he got when he saw the green-haired witch with un-healthy obsession over pizza. “It was fate who brought you here tonight, Your Majesty. And the fact that you are here means that you have a wish.”

“A wish…?” the boy looked deep in thought.

“Yes. The only people who could see this shop are the ones who have a wish, because this is a wish-granting shop. And as the shopkeeper, I will grant your wish as long as you can pay the price of equal value,” the shopkeeper explain.

“Where… Where is _here_?” the boy asked curiously.

“Tokyo, Japan.”

“Tokyo… But I was in Aries Villa… in Pendragon…” the boy looked confused. He looked around him carefully. “And this place… this is not Tokyo…”

“It _is_ Tokyo, it _is_ Japan,” the shopkeeper said.

“You mean Area 11?”

“No. Japan,” the shopkeeper smiled. “A different Japan from the one you know.”

“I… I don’t get it…”

“This is another Japan, from another world. Where there is no Britannia, no Knightmare frames, no Geass.”

“You mean I—?”

“Inter-dimensional travel? Yes,” the shopkeeper smiled brightly.

“How?”

“Because it was destined for you to be here tonight, Your Majesty.”

“You keep calling me ‘Your Majesty’… Do you know who I am?”

“The Emperor of Britannia.”

“Right.”

Neither of them said anything.

“So, these shop… Can really grant any wish?” the boy asked slowly.

“As long as I can grant it, and you can pay it with something of equal value,” the shopkeeper nodded.

The boy was silent as he contemplating.

“You carried such a heavy burden, Your Majesty,” the shopkeeper said softly. “So heavy, it broke you. And yet, you keep on going while piecing yourself together and tried to keep it last until the final stage.”

“You know,” a sad smiled ghosted over the boy’s lips.

“The price of killing humans is so heavy,” the shopkeeper looked solemn as he sipped his tea. “The burden will break people. Those who knew this won’t kill because in the end it’s not worth it.”

“Is that so?” the boy smiled and sipped his now luke-warm tea. “I always told myself that the only one who should kill, are those who are prepared to be killed,” he looked down to his hands. Long fingers soft and delicate, were glowing softly under the moonlight. Yet these hands had been painted red for so long, the boy forgot how it felt to have them clean.

“But then again… maybe for some people, there are things who would worth the weight,” the shopkeeper mused.

“Maybe,” the boy agreed.

“Shall I hear your wish?” the shopkeeper asked.

The boy smiled. “I wish… for a gentle and kinder world, where my sister could live in peace.”

The shopkeeper was giving him a knowing smile. “It’s a tall wish with a great price,” the shopkeeper smiled sadly.

The boy chuckled. “I know.”

“But I think you already know the price of your wish,” the shopkeeper said.

“Yes. I always know it all along,” the boy smiled.

“Then your wish shall be granted, Your Majesty,” the shopkeeper smiled.

The teas had gone cold, and the boy had left the shop.

He knew the price all along. And he would pay for it.

 

* * *

 

 

“Eavesdropping is really rude, Doumeki,” Watanuki sighed as he smoked his pipe in silence, once he was alone in the porch and the young Emperor left the shop. From behind the half closed shoji door, a man was sitting quietly without saying anything.

“That boy… you said he already knows the price for his wish…” Doumeki said slowly. “The price for a gentle and kinder world… And you said his wish will be granted…”

“It will be. Tomorrow, the boy will have the gentle and kinder world for her sister after they paid the price.”

“’ _They’_?” Doumeki asked in confusion.

“Yes. The price for such world will be paid by three people,” Watanuki nodded. “The one who will bear the sin and curse to live behind the mask, the one who will lose their most important person, and the one who will sacrifice his life for the future. The boy, he knew the price already, and so is the one who will take up the legacy. As for the last one… It would take a while, but she will know it is inevitable.”

“So… in the end, the three of them were cursed from the beginning with this destiny?”

“Who knows? Human’s choices could change the flow of fate. There is no such thing as the right future, because every decision had its consequence, and none of those consequences could really hold the value of right and wrong.”

“So, the boy… he will have his wish granted?”

“Yes. After a long, tiring journey, it will end.”

“Say, supposed the boy led a different life. Supposed he never have a sister, or he never met this other people he would share the burden of payment with… Do you think things will happen differently?”

Watanuki chuckled and shook his head. “Really, Doumeki, you ask _that_ of all thing?” he scoffed. “You should know it already. In this world, there is no such thing as coincidence, only the inevitable.”

 

 


End file.
